Wiktionary:Votes/2016-09/Renaming transliteration

Renaming transliteration edit

Voting on:

Proposal #1: Renaming the transliteration policies in all languages from the format "Wiktionary:X transliteration" to either "Wiktionary:X romanization" or "Wiktionary:X transcription". Examples:

Proposal #2: If and only if the proposal #1 passes, renaming all templates, modules, internal variables and functions of modules, and template parameters in all entries that use "transliteration" into the new format.

  • This includes renaming templates and modules that have "transliteration=", "translit=", etc., like {{xlit}}.
  • This includes renaming common template parameters like "tr=" (used in {{t}}, {{m}}, {{l}}, etc.) into the new system.
  • The exact new parameter is not part of the vote, but if "transcription" passes, people may decide to keep "tr=". If "romanization" passes, a possible suggestion would be using "r=".

Rationale:

Transliteration is not an accurate term for what Wiktionary uses it for in practice, and one user has expressed concern for this naming. Therefore, it is proposed that transliteration is renamed in all places in Wiktionary's pages and infrastructure, to a more accurate term.

  • Vote starts: 00:00, 30 September 2016 (UTC)
  • Vote ends: 23:59, 29 October 2016 (UTC)

Proposal 1 (rename policies) edit

Support option 1: "transcription" edit
  1.   Support Crom daba (talk) 14:26, 1 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Support option 2: "romanization" edit
  1.   Support --Daniel Carrero (talk) 06:40, 30 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    I support renaming all transliteration policies (Category:Transliteration policies) to "romanization" and using "r=" or "rom=" as the romanization parameter in templates. "Romanization" is widely used in entries, both in the POS header and in the category name (see suru#Japanese). These entries are categorized in Category:Romanizations by language. We have Category:Transliterations by language also, but their only purpose is serving as middle categories to place the "romanization" categories themselves, with 2 Chinese exceptions I'll mention below. (example: Category:Japanese romanizations is inside Category:Japanese transliterations, which is otherwise empty; the same is true for Egyptian, Sundanese and others)
    Category:Chinese romanizations, Category:Gothic romanizations and Category:Japanese romanizations are the only ones with thousands of entries, if we count the Chinese entries that are placed in subcategories: Category:Mandarin pinyin and Category:Cantonese jyutping.
    Category:Chinese transliterations has two children for transliterations that are not written in Latin script, which can be explained in pages that are not called either WT:Chinese transliteration or WT:Chinese romanization. They are:
    --Daniel Carrero (talk) 06:40, 30 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose edit
  1.   Oppose per my comments on the talk page and other reasons. --WikiTiki89 14:58, 30 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  2.   Oppose — AFAICT from reading Wiktionary:Beer parlour/2016/June#Thai Transliteration Debate Explained (I think) and other discussions, this change does not address Wyang’s desire that our modular infrastructure distinguish transliteration and transcription; changing all instances of “transliteration” to “transcription” is surely no improvement. — I.S.M.E.T.A. 21:53, 9 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  3.   Oppose The supposed difference between "transliteration" and "transcription" is a matter of pure assertion, and transliteration is a perfectly normal word to describe the process under consideration. Ƿidsiþ 06:59, 10 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  4.   Oppose per Ƿidsiþ. --Droigheann (talk) 20:07, 22 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  5.   Oppose as a general change. But the proposed change would probably be justified for some languages. I agree that transcription is not transliteration (see w:Transliteration). The policy should depend on the language. Lmaltier (talk) 20:20, 22 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Abstain edit
  1.   Abstain. I don't yet deal with languages that use other writing systems than the Latin alphabet, so whatever happens makes no difference to me. I would like to see the conflict between CodeCat and Wyang resolved, however, as I think both of them are valuable editors. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 19:37, 11 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  2.   Abstain -Xbony2 (talk) 10:59, 19 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal 2 (rename templates, modules, parameters, functions and variables to match the proposal #1) edit

Support edit
Oppose edit
  1.   Oppose a massive renaming project like this, regardless of the result of proposal #1. There are hundreds and hundreds of templates out there with tr= parameters (and tr2=, tr3=, ..., pltr=, pltr2=, ..., ftr=, ftr2=, ..., etc.), and lots and lots of module code to implement these parameters. Renaming all the parameters is a ginormous programming task, especially considering that in practice we will probably have to support both the old and new parameter names while the pages that use the templates have their parameters bot-renamed. I don't see our limited programming resources being well-spent trying to implement something like this. Benwing2 (talk) 08:09, 30 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  2.   Oppose regardless of the outcome of the above per Benwing2. --WikiTiki89 14:59, 30 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  3.   Oppose, we need to separate transcription from transliteration, not confound them further by using "Romanization" Crom daba (talk) 14:33, 1 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Abstain edit
  1.   Abstain -Xbony2 (talk) 10:59, 19 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Decision edit

Both proposals failed.

  • Proposal 1: 1 support (option 1), 1 support (option 2), 5 opposes, 2 abstentions
  • Proposal 2: 0 support, 3 opposes, 1 abstentions

Vote count (proposal 1):

  • We should probably have used the voting system from Wiktionary:Votes/2016-02/Placement of "Usage notes", which was designed as a better way to cast votes to multiple, contradictory options.
  • If we just count the 2 support votes and disregard the fact that each support was for a separate option, the results are: 2-5-2 (28.57%-71.43%).
  • If we count only the support votes for a given option and ignore the other option, the results are:
    • Option 1: 1-5-2 (16.67%-83.33%).
    • Option 2: 1-5-2 (16.67%-83.33%).

Vote count (proposal 2):

  • Not important. Even if it had 100% support, the fact that the proposal 1 failed invalidates the proposal 2.
  • Anyway, the results are 0-3-1 (0%-100%).

--Daniel Carrero (talk) 08:16, 31 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]